Dr Palitha Kohona, an Australian citizen and Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary has now assumed duties as the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, New York. This new appointment follows the retirement of M.G.S. Palihakkara due to personal reasons. The appointment is no surprise as Kohana played a strong hand in the recent 2009 blood-bath in Sri Lankan and is a close advisor to war savy Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Kohana is one of the culpable Individuals who has been accused of War Crimes in Sri Lanka, who is now posted to a diplomatic post. To date, Sri Lankan Government has posted 3 such high ranking officers who were directly involved in the massacre of Tamils. Kohana has been in charge of preventing international investigations brought forward by Britain, the EU and the UN rights chief into whether Sri Lanka committed war crimes by firing on civilian targets, including hospitals.
In the midst of the recent Sri Lankan military offensive against Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka in which over 20,000 civilians have been killed, Kohana put out a false statement that the government of Mexico, which requested UN Security Council briefings on the issue, as he was committed to keep the issue off the Council’s agenda. Then, Kohana having denied that the Government fired into the designated ‘no fire zone’, then changed his position and accepted that the Government did bomb the’ No fire zone’ and also stated that UN High Commission for Human rights “is not the UN”.
Furthermore, Kohana is complicit in helping a war criminal, Karuna to go to UK under a false diplomatic passport for a bogus Climate Change conference.
-HRO